Sapphire HD4850 Review

Testing:

I am very interested and excited to see how the new Sapphire HD4850 using the new GPU from ATI will compare when it is tested using a few different video benchmarks to measure the performance that the software is able to get when using the HD4850. I will be putting the Sapphire HD4850 up against a few different video cards that are out on the market, including the PowerColor HD4850. All of the settings will be set at stock settings for all of the cards, I will be overclocking the HD4850 to the maximum level that I will be able to do so that I can compare the difference in performance due to the overclocking process and see how beneficial it is to overclock all components in your system.  

• Processor: Intel Q9450 Core 2 Quad 333x8
• Motherboard: Gigabyte X48-DQ6
• Memory: Mushkin XP2 Redline 8000 2 x 2GB 5-5-5-12
• Video Card(s): Sapphire HD 4850 w/ Catalyst 8.6
• Power Supply: Mushkin 800 watt Modular power supply
• Hard Drive: Seagate 750GB SATA
• Optical Drive: LiteOn DVD+/-RW
• OS: Windows Vista Ultimate Edition

Comparison Video Cards:

• PowerColor HD4850
• Asus EN9800 GTX
• XFX 9600GT
• Sapphire HD3870
• Asus 8800 GT
• Diamond Viper HD3850
• XFX GTX 280

Overclocking:

Overclocked settings:

• Sapphire HD4850: Core - 670MHz   Memory - 1100MHz

When it cames to overclocking the Sapphire HD4850, I used a piece of software called AMD GPU Clock Tool. During the overclocking process, the temperatures did not go up more than a few degrees, however after those few degrees, the final temperature was between 82 to 86 degrees.  

Benchmarks:

• Video:

1. Crysis
2. Knights of the Sea
3. BioShock
4. Call of Duty 4
5. World in Conflict
6. Call of Juarez
7. Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
8. 3DMark 06 Professional